Can you break the 3 GB ram limit in Windows XP 32-bit?

[Guest]

My computer has 4 GB of ram in it but only recognizes 3.25 GB. I know its because I'm running Windows XP 32-bit but I want to somehow break that 3 GB limit and use all 4 GB.

Is there anyway I can?

 

[Josh Brumpton]

No

 

[NukaB]

No, you can't, unfortunately. It just won't utilize any more memory you put in. You're better off upgrading to Windows 7 64bit some time soon!

 

[bignastyid]

I'm not sure how many hundreds or thousands of times this has been asked but the answer is still no.

 

[dextermat]

Hi,

No you can't but you can make the wasted memory into a ramdisk with

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

Easy to used and speed the computer up a bit.

 

[COLGeek]

This limitation is common to all 32-bit operating systems, not just XP.

See here for more technical info regarding the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_limit#32-bit_x86_RAM_limit

BTW, even if you could access all 4GB, you would see little (or no) difference in overall system performance. You need a 64-bit OS to go beyond this limitation.

Good luck!

 

[kulmnar]

No you can't, 32 bit operating system means that 2 to the power of 32 memory is addressable (4GB). some of this is reserved by Windows, BIOS and shared graphics memory...hence you get around 3GB to 3.75GB of memory that is usable.

 

[USAFRet]

Well....theoretically there is supposedly a way to do it.

However it is such a tricky, fail prone, procedure, for such a tiny gain (3.25GB to 4GB), and basically zero actual performance gain....I will not link it here.

The instructions I found were not for XP, and also any 32bit applications cannot use that extra space. So again...no gain.

 

[Guest]

Well....theoretically there is supposedly a way to do it.

However it is such a tricky, fail prone, procedure, for such a tiny gain (3.25GB to 4GB), and basically zero actual performance gain....I will not link it here.

The instructions I found were not for XP, and also any 32bit applications cannot use that extra space. So again...no gain.

Thanks! Was just making sure I wasn't looking in the wrong places.